A Different Mirror
by AgentT
Summary: Something's happening...can the Andromeda crew find out what it is before it ends everything?
1. A Different Mirror

  
  
"In less than a hundred years, we have found a new way to think of ourselves. From sitting at the center of the universe, we now find ourselves orbiting an average-sized sun, which is just one of millions of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. And our galaxy itself is just one of billions of galaxies, in a universe that is infinite and expanding. But this is far from the end of a long history of inquiry. Huge questions remain to be answered, before we can hope to have a complete picture of the universe we live in."   
  
--Stephen Hawking, 20th Century scientist  
  
  
Broken Mirror  
  
"We've got a problem here." Harper muttered as he looked at the mass of tangled wires hanging out of the panel like a gutted fish. Beka walked in, carrying a large tool.   
  
"I should say so. The damage is still horrendous, even if we've been working for a week." She said, shaking her head. She sighed. "I'm going to go down to the planet, see what supplies we can get."   
  
"Well, it'll take a day or two to get everything back inside their proper places again. And then we're going to have to power it back up" Harper frowned. "I hope nothing explodes…" He trailed off as Rommie entered.   
  
"The sensors are back online." She said. "Diagnostics show that the only thing still malfunctioning is the navigational controls. And even that is minor."   
  
Harper grinned. "Good to know, Rommie. We'll be out and about sooner than I thought."   
  
Dylan walked in, and stumbled over one of Harper's tools. His hand shot out and he held onto the side of a cart for support. As he straightened up, he looked at the large array of equipment surrounding Harper.   
  
"What are you doing, running inventory?" He asked.   
  
Harper shrugged. "Could be. Anyhow, Rommie has informed me of our impending departure." He said.   
  
"Yes, we should be on our way by tomorrow." Dylan said. "I just came in to ask if you've seen Trance."   
  
"I think she's around the commerce planet with Beka." He said.   
  
Dylan nodded. "Thanks." He turned to leave, but stopped just shy of the door, which swished opened immediately. "Harper?"   
  
The young man looked up from inspecting one of his apparatus. "Yeah?"   
  
"I know you use the 'every pot in the house' method to fixing things, but try to clean up." He said.   
  
Harper grinned and saluted. "Will do, Cap."   
  
  
  
The Next Day  
  
Harper hopped into his seat on board the Andromeda Ascendant's command bridge. He pressed a few buttons on a pad he had in his hand and grinned.   
  
"She's new and improved, ladies and gentlemen, I present…. the Andromeda Ascendant!"   
  
Tyr rolled his eyes as Dylan smiled and shook his head.   
  
"Powering up." He said and the Andromeda hummed to life.   
  
"Remus III, this is the Andromeda Ascendant, leaving docking bay." Beka said to the commerce planet.   
  
"Andromeda, this is Remus III wishing you a safe journey." A humanoid voice responded.   
  
"Nice folks. Too bad I didn't have the time to go visit." Harper said, shifting in his seat.   
  
As soon as they had left the colony, things settled down to a quieter pace. Tyr began his exercise in his quarters while Beka checked the supplies they had got on the planet.   
  
Trance and Rev were in Sickbay as usual, while Dylan had decided to play chess with Rommie, even though she tended to beat him everytime. left Harper to wander.   
  
"This is a first. No projects." He muttered. He suddenly felt very sad. And very bored.   
  
As he walked through the ship, heading towards his own personal corner, Engineering, he tried to muster something to do. There was nothing to fix, he'd done that for the past week since the ship scraped against an asteroid. And besides, he just got off from fixing the ship; he didn't want to get back to it just yet.   
  
He wandered through Andromeda, examining the walls, making sure nothing was sticking out. As he did so, he heard a clanking sound. He stopped and backed up to make sure he wasn't making the noise. There was none of the usual din that accompanied him when he had his tool belt.   
  
The noise resumed. Harper frowned and walked to the wall. He leaned closer and tried to locate the noise.   
  
Beka left the cargo bay and decided to get some lunch. She walked through the hallways, her eyes steering over the cool interior. She passed Harper, who seemed to be in deep thought.   
  
"Hey Harper."   
  
The engineer kept walking past her. Beka shrugged and cast a suspicious eye towards him. "Okay, bye then."   
  
She turned around and resumed walking. As she rounded the corner, she ran straight into-  
  
"Harper?"   
  
The young man looked up. "Huh?"  
  
For a second, Beka thought Harper's ear was glued to the wall. He was standing next to the ship, the side of his head close to the hull.   
  
"What are you doing?" She asked. and then her expression changed. She was confused beyond measure. "And didn't I just see you walking down the hallway?"  
  
Harper temporarily focused his orbs on her. "What? No, I was here. I heard something, thought it was some-yeah." He closed his mouth and they stood for a second in silence.   
  
Beka was the first to break the silence. "Anyways, I swear I just saw you…"   
  
Harper shook his head. "I was here for a while."   
  
Beka shook her head and started to walk on. "I must be coming down with something." She muttered.   
  
As her back disappeared, Harper peered around the corner to make sure she was gone. When she was, he crept back to the wall and put his ear to it again.   



	2. A Different Mirror

  
  
Perfect Mirror  
  
"The ship is in perfect order." Harper said, confused. "But I keep hearing that noise. This rattling, shuffling."   
  
"Sensors show nothing biological on board except for us." Rommie said. She frowned. "Nothing mechanical either."   
  
"So I'm hearing things. Great." Harper threw his hands up.   
  
"I don't know, I'm still suspicious. There's a great deal we don't have knowledge about. Try to find what you can." Captain Hunt said to Harper. "Tyr, try to do a manual search of the ship."   
  
"I'll run another scan." Rommie said. "Whatever you heard, it might only appear at intervals."   
  
"I want the channels open. If you see anything, then report immediately."   
  
"I think we are making this into a larger matter than it should be." Tyr said.   
  
"I don't think we can ever be sure if we really are." Dylan said. "Maybe it is nothing. But I want to be sure."   
  
***   
  
Rommie walked through the corridors of the ship, analyzing the walls carefully. As the Andromeda herself, she could do that from the bridge, without even touching a console, but Harper had emphasized that even though she was Andromeda, she should become familiar with the ship as a being, not just as a machine or a ship. After all, the Andromeda Ascendant was almost alive.  
  
She turned a corner and her eyes widened.   
  
Rommie was frowning as she entered command. "A resolution scan of the ship hull shows an odd texture on the surface, next to the bay doors."   
  
"Put it on screen." Beka said before Dylan could respond.   
  
The screen shimmered and the vast darkness of space transformed into an enlarged image of the Andromeda's outer hull.  
  
"What the hell is that?" Beka asked in disgust.  
  
"It looks like a fungus of some kind." Dylan said, frowning. His eyes focused closer.   
  
"It appears to be a symbiotic organism. The organism itself appears to be biological but it lives off the core matter of a mechanical structure." Rommie said. "It could be feeding off the signature of the slipstream drive."   
  
"When's the last time we used the drive?" Dylan asked Beka, his face darkening in suspicion.  
  
"When we left Remus III." She said. "Something must have happened during repairs. There were malfunctions all over the place, we couldn't have known if something had attached itself to the ship."   
  
"But I ran a full diagnostic a few hours after we left. Nothing internal or external was out of the ordinary." Rommie frowned.   
  
"It is puzzling indeed." Dylan pressed a button.   
  
"Harper, Tyr, get to the bridge." Dylan said.   
  
***   
  
"That is disgusting!" Harper exclaimed when the image showed up again.   
  
"What is it?" Tyr asked. "And how do we kill it?"   
  
"Figures you'd ask that." Harper said.   
  
"For now we don't know enough about it to make any judgments on what to do." Dylan said. "But it is organic, and it is feeding off the energy of the ship."   
  
"So we power down the ship." Beka said.   
  
"No, we can't do that. We power down the ship, there'll still be life support running. And even if we do it enough that that-that-thing leaves, where's it gonna go? It's just gonna find some other ship to suck dry." Harper said, watching the grayish mass on the side of the ship.   
  
"He's right. We need a way to eradicate it." Dylan said. "Rommie, is there sign that this happened during our departure on Remus III?"  
  
"It would appear possible. Most of us were incredibly busy during that time. And the ship wasn't exactly in peak order."  
  
Tyr scowled as he read the sensor information on the console.   
  
"This is-odd." He said. "Trace? Rev, are you in sickbay?" He said into the comm.   
  
Rev answered. "Yes, both Trace and I are in Sickbay. What's wrong?"   
  
"Nothing." Tyr said absently. His eyes flitted across the console.   
  
Beka, Dylan, and Harper looked at him expectantly. Harper looked at Rommie, waiting for an answer.  
  
Tyr solved the confusion for them. "Intruder alert on Deck 6." He announced. Then he matched Harper's following scowl. "This is strange." He said.   
  
'What?" Harper asked. He looked at Rommie, then at Tyr.   
  
"It indicates the intruder on Deck 6 is…" He looked at Beka. "You."   
  
***   
  
"But I'm right here, this isn't possible." Beka said.   
  
"I know, which means someone is on board and they're somehow masking their signal." Rommie said.   
  
Tyr had already left the bridge with Dylan and Beka at this time, on their way to Deck 6.   
  
Harper shook his head in confusion and then went to a station.   
  
"What are you doing?" Rommie asked.   
  
"Monitoring them. I want to know who's wandering around Deck 6." He said.   
  
Rommie inclined her head and watched Harper work. His brown furrowed.   
  
"What are you doing, Harper?" She asked.   
  
"I told you. I'm monitoring them."   
  
Suddenly, the bridge doors sealed.   
  
"What the-" Harper said, looking up in surprise.   
  
"Get away from the console." Andromeda ordered.   
  
"Rommie, what are you doing?" He asked.   
  
"Get away from the console." She ordered again.   
  
Harper raised his hands and backed up. "All right. What's doing on?"   
  
Rommie glared at him silently. Something beeped.   
  
"Remus III, this is the Andromeda Ascendant." Rommie said. "The ship is acquired"  



End file.
